Pupil Premium
What is Pupil Premium?
Introduced in April 2011, the pupil premium is a sum of money given to schools each year by the Government to improve the attainment of disadvantaged children. This includes children who are looked after by the local authority, those who have been eligible for FSM at any point in the last six years (also known as Ever 6 FSM) and for children whose parents are currently serving in the armed forces.
Is your child eligible?
Schools are given a pupil premium for:
- Children who have qualified for free school meals at any point in the past six years. For 2016 to 2017 the school receives £1320 for each of these children.
- Children who have been looked after under local authority care for more than one day. These children are awarded a premium of £1900.
How is it spent?
Schools can choose how to spend their pupil premium money, as they are best placed to identify what would be of most benefit to the children who are eligible.
Common ways school spend their pupil premium fund include:
- Extra one-to-one or small-group support for children within the classroom.
- Employing extra teaching assistants to work with classes.
- Running catch-up sessions before or after school, for example for children who need extra help with maths or English.
- Running a school breakfast club to improve attendance.
- Providing extra tuition for able children who receive the pupil premium, for example in preparation for SATs.
- Funding educational trips and visits.
- Paying for additional help such as speech and language therapy or family therapy.
- Funding English classes for children who speak another language at home.
- Investing in resources that boost children’s learning, such as laptops or tablets.
For further details about how school supports pupil premium children please read our Pupil Premium Policy by clicking on the link below.
How to claim your child’s pupil premium
Your child may be eligible for free school meals – and accordingly pupil premium – if you receive any of the following benefits:
- Income support.
- Income-based jobseekers’ allowance.
- Income-related employment and support allowance.
- Support under Part IV of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.
- The guaranteed element of state pension credit.
- Child tax credit, provided that you are not also entitled to working tax credit and have an annual gross income of £16,190 or less.
- Universal credit
If you feel your child would be eligible for Pupil Premium Funding or you wish to check if they are eligible you can apply by telephone, post or online. Please click here for further details.
From September 2014, all children in Reception and Years 1 and 2 will qualify for free school meals, regardless of their family income, but only the children who would have qualified for free meals under the above income-based criteria will receive the pupil premium.
If your child qualifies for free school meals, it’s important that you tell school – even if they take a packed lunch – as this enables us to claim pupil premium.
For details on how school have spent and plan to spend their allocation of pupil premium funding please refer to the pupil premium spending report below.
